Gay pop star Lance Bass 'came out' to pal Britney Spears in 2004 in a bid to comfort the Toxic hitmaker during the break down of her short-lived Las Vegas marriage.

Spears exchanged vows with her childhood friend Jason Alexander in Sin City on 3 January, 2004, but their marriage lasted only 55 hours and was later annulled.

The subsequent media frenzy about the nuptials sent Spears spiralling into depression, and Bass decided to share his deepest secret with his friend in a desperate bid to cheer her up.

The 'N Sync star, who was on hand for the ill-fated ceremony, went public with his sexuality two years later.

He says, "The way I came out to Britney was, it was her first marriage, when she got married in Vegas, that little 24-hour one.

"So I was up there for that, and she was kind of upset because she knew what was gonna happen the next day, and all the press, and the only thing I could think of to kind of calm her down and make her stop crying was, 'I'm gay.'